OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- Barry Bonds played nine solid innings and
looked ready for the regular season. The San Francisco Giants only
wish they could say the same about Armando Benitez.
After Benitez was rocked for four runs in the eighth inning of
the Giants' 14-3 loss to the Oakland Athletics on Saturday, San
Francisco announced its closer will start the season on the
disabled list.
Bonds went 0-for-4 but looked smooth while playing in a wet
outfield at the Coliseum. He again declined comment on commissioner
Bud Selig's announcement of a special investigation into steroid use in baseball last week.
"I'm an adult. I don't have to react to anything if I choose not," Bonds said.
Bonds is expected to be the Giants' designated hitter in their
final exhibition Sunday. The seven-time NL MVP's troublesome right
knee and strained left elbow are no longer the Giants' biggest
injury concerns.
Instead, they're wondering when Benitez will recover from the
left knee bursitis that has turned one of the game's most feared
closers into a struggling shell of himself.
"He's not throwing the ball well," San Francisco manager
Felipe Alou said. "We know he's not 100 percent. He took it well.
He's a battler. He wants to be on the hill, but he also knows he's
not there yet."
Benitez gave up Richie Robnett's bases-loaded ground-rule double
while yielding four runs, three hits, two walks and a hit batsman
in the eighth. After missing 13 days of the Cactus League schedule
with his knee problem, he finished with a 23.48 ERA in eight spring
training appearances.
But Benitez was upbeat after the A's pounded him. He'll stay
with the Giants during his rehabilitation, and Alou expects him to
be back in two weeks.
"I'm not disappointed, but right now, I can't even be the
closer," Benitez said. "I need to get my stuff together. I think
I need a couple of weeks. I can get myself together and come back.
We've got people here that can close the games. My arm is good. My
knee, it will be [good]. My windup, my mechanics right now are
terrible."
Benitez has been nothing but injury trouble since signing a
big-money deal with the Giants before last season. He missed 96
games in 2005 with a serious hamstring injury, finishing with just
19 saves, and the Giants struggled for consistent ninth-inning
pitching for the third straight season in Alou's tenure.
Alou wouldn't name a substitute closer, but Tim Worrell and
Tyler Walker have filled the role in recent seasons.
"I'm a veteran of this now -- four straight years," Alou said
of the Giants' bad luck with injury-plagued closers Benitez and
Robb Nen since 2003.
Eric Chavez and Nick Swisher both hit two-run homers and
run-scoring doubles for the A's, and Frank Thomas also hit his
second homer of the spring for his new team. Esteban Loaiza pitched
six strong innings in his final tuneup before starting his first
season with Oakland.
Bobby Kielty had a run-scoring single in the seventh, but the
A's announced he'll start the regular season with Triple-A
Sacramento, thanks to a daunting weather forecast that forces the
A's to assume they'll play a doubleheader against the Yankees on
Wednesday, prompting them to keep 12 pitchers on the roster.
Loaiza allowed just three hits, retiring 10 straight after Steve Finley's solo homer in the first. Though he left Arizona with a 12.91 ERA, Loaiza pronounced himself ready for his first season with the A's.
Giants right-hander Matt Cain was inconsistent in the same way
he pitched in Arizona, surrendering two-run homers to Swisher and
Chavez in the first inning before retiring the next nine batters.
The 21-year-old, who's on track to pitch San Francisco's home
opener Thursday, also struck out seven in five innings.
Thomas was limited to just nine plate appearances in his first
Arizona spring with the A's after breaking his left ankle twice
last season with the White Sox. His fourth-inning homer was a
full-count solo shot to left -- just the type of slugging that made
the Big Hurt one of the most feared hitters of the 1990s.
"This whole spring, I'm seeing [pitchers] I've never seen
before, but that's good," Thomas said. "As we play more
ballgames, I'll be ready to go."
The Bay Area clubs, who played in San Francisco on Friday night,
finish up their exhibition series back across the Bay on Sunday.
Game notes
Roy Steele, the A's public-address announcer since they
moved to Oakland in 1968, will miss the club's first two homestands
with an undisclosed throat ailment. ... Antonio Perez and John
Baker added RBI doubles in the eighth for Oakland. ... Worrell gave
up four doubles and three runs in the seventh.